Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Search This Blog

Pages

Cook Club

"Let's encourage people to eat real food,

which for most people will mean eating better.

For most people, eating better is mostly about

will and skill."

- Mark Bittman, A Bone to Pick

This weekend was the first ever, much anticipated, highly inspired, and completely delicious.... COOK CLUB!! I had been wanting to gather friends and their friends and their friends' friends for a cooking/eating event but didn't quite have a vision for how it would go down. I wanted it to be something special (I mean, it would involve food so of course it would be special) but also approachable! I wanted to gather people to share my love of cooking and eating real food! I've been inspired to take action after reading all sorts of food-related books (Eating Animals, A Bone to Pick to name a few). So I thought 'Cook Club' might describe the sentiment I was aiming for: a club of peeps that like to cook. Rather than books uniting us every few months, it'd be cooking!

When I spitballed ideas with my friend Emma, she was ecstatic! She suggested, "Let's make it themed around cookbooks!" I had just leafed through the pages of my coworker's copy of The Forest Feast and realized we had a perfect cookbook to start from. It's all vegetarian, seasonal, basic recipes. Perfect for a meal that's approachable for any skill level. So we ordered our books, picked out the tastiest sounding and most seasonal recipes, and gathered at my place in Berkeley for the first Cook Club!

You might note that I only managed to capture a photo of the crostini... Whoopsie. In my defense: daylight savings. When we sat down with the rest of the meal and filled the picnic table with tasty salads and veggies and tacos, it had gotten a little too dark for any golden hour food shots. As the Matt & Kim song goes: "No time for cameras, let's use our eyes instead." Or in our case, our mouths and stomachs!

We had fun cooking from The Forest Feast and thought the Cauliflower Tacos, Crostini, and Latkes were the tastiest. The simplicity of the Rosemary Shortbread hit the spot for dessert. It was just crisp and light and aromatic enough without being too sweet! I also whipped up a last minute homemade hot sauce using my secret weapon: ADOBO PEPPERS. Aww yeahh! I should devote an entire post to my love of those sweet sweet smoky peppers.

Stay tuned in the new year for scenes from our next Cook Club! (and perhaps an adobo pepper recipe!) Hope our little gathering inspires you to open up a cookbook, gather a few friends, and enjoy a beautiful meal together!! Happy cooking!